


Exist Without Fear

by whelvenwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel in the Bunker, Castiel's True Form, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 09:03:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4298790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelvenwings/pseuds/whelvenwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean was standing in front of the mirror, rubbing at his jaw with an expression of dissatisfaction. He peered closer, touching the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and the rough, scarred skin under his right ear where some monster or other – Dean forgot which, there had been so many – had got a little too friendly. He looked like his oldest pair of jeans: a little wrinkled, patched up and worn thin in too many places. Slightly sad-looking, even on the brightest of days, and with some dirt ground in so deep that no amount of washing would ever get it out.<br/>He sighed and shrugged at his reflection before turning away, heading for the door – where Cas was standing, awkwardly upright with his hands hanging by his sides. He must’ve seen the whole thing.<br/>________________________________________________<br/>Dean has many insecurities but when Castiel notices, he decides to show Dean something that could change his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exist Without Fear

**Author's Note:**

> this fic has been translated into Russian by the lovely Girl with Violets. [read it here!](https://ficbook.net/readfic/4246444)

Dean was standing in front of the mirror, rubbing at his jaw with an expression of dissatisfaction. He peered closer, touching the crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes and the rough, scarred skin under his right ear where some monster or other – Dean forgot which, there had been so many – had got a little too friendly. He looked like his oldest pair of jeans: a little wrinkled, patched up and worn thin in too many places. Slightly sad-looking, even on the brightest of days, and with some dirt ground in so deep that no amount of washing would ever get it out.

He sighed and shrugged at his reflection before turning away, heading for the door – where Cas was standing, awkwardly upright with his hands hanging by his sides. He must’ve seen the whole thing.

Dean cleared his throat and made to push past him, but Cas didn’t move.

“Why do you look so disappointed in yourself?” he asked, frowning. His head was tilted on one side, at the angle that Dean thought of as  _acute confusion._

“What?” he said, bluff and slightly aggressive. “I’m tired, Cas, I gotta hit the hay.”

Cas didn’t move, nor did his expression change.

“I saw you looking at yourself,” he said stubbornly. “Your expression was… displeased. Are you upset?”

“Cas,” Dean said, smiling a little coldly and clapping him on the shoulder. “Come back to me when you’ve got a psychology degree, OK, buddy? I’m tired.”

This time, Cas allowed Dean to pass, although his frown didn’t lift. Dean sighed again, and kept walking. Cas only wanted to help, but there were some things that you just couldn’t solve with a few kind words and an intensely solemn expression… some dirt that was ground in too deep, Dean found himself thinking again. It was as though he had dirt in the marrow of his bones.

He reached his bedroom and simply stood in it for a moment, looking around. It was warm, it was safe, it was clean… it was everything he’d ever wanted, but now that he had it, he felt out of place, like a rat in a fairy tale palace. This was just too good for someone like him, after all of the things that he’d done. The grime of motel life had always irked him, but it was only now it was gone that Dean realised he’d belonged in it.

He sighed and started to undress, tugging off his long-sleeved shirt and then pulling the t-shirt underneath it over his head. He turned around to find a pyjama top, and almost walked right into Cas.

“Cas - !” Dean started, before his expression flattened. “How many times have we had this talk, man?  _Personal. Freaking. Space._ ”

“I have something to show you,” Cas said, seemingly unaffected by Dean’s words. Dean exhaled with his eyes closed, long and slow, to calm his nerves.

“I’m tired,” he said. “Can it wait ‘til morning?”

“It will take most of the night,” Cas said. Dean opened his mouth to reply, and then several thoughts occurred to him all at once, and his mouth snapped shut.

“Mmm?” he managed, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

“It will probably be easiest if you get into bed,” Cas said, and even though the words were spoken in Cas’ usual monotonous, serious tone, they were still making Dean’s heart start to beat a little harder, and sending a tingle down his spine.

“Uh,” he said intelligently. “Um. Wh-what’s going – what are you going show me?”

“Something different,” Cas said. Dean swallowed; he didn’t understand what was happening, but there were parts of him that definitely weren’t averse. He backed up, moving towards the bed, and sat down.

“Lie back,” Cas said, softly enough that it wasn’t quite an order. Dean’s mouth was slightly open, now, and he did as Cas asked. Cas moved around the bed and came to lie next to Dean, laying himself out lean and graceful, all awkwardness lost in his intense purposefulness. He was propped up on one hand, elbow resting on the memory foam mattress. Dean looked up at him, his own head resting on his pillow.

Cas stretched out one hand towards Dean’s face. Dean almost leaned up to greet the touch, but didn’t quite have the courage. Instead, he lay still. His breathing was quick and his eyes were focused on those fingers that were coming towards him, his skin tingling in anticipation of their caress. They were getting closer and closer, and Dean’s heart was almost beating out of his chest, his whole body suddenly shivering with an urgent, desperate want that he’d been beating down and holding back for far, far too long…

At the last moment, Cas pulled his fingers back. Dean almost groaned with disappointment, with need. He looked over to Cas, who was frowning.

“If at any point you want to stop,” he said in that low, rough voice, “you only have to say so. Is this alright so far?”

“Yes,” Dean said, a little breathlessly.  _Please,_ he almost added.

Reassured that Dean was comfortable, Cas brought his hand close once more. For a brief moment, he held his palm just a bare centimetre from Dean’s skin, so close that Dean could feel the warmth radiating from his palm – a heat that Dean wanted to explore, wanted to  _know_  – and then, with an exhale, he pressed forwards. For a split second it was just skin against skin, a five-fingered miracle against Dean’s cheek – and then, in the next instant, the world crumbled, blackened, and exploded.

“Cas!” Dean yelled. His body was flailing, he wasn’t being supported by anything – he was floating, too terrified to scream, and all around him was total darkness –

 _Dean,_  said a gentle voice. Though perhaps  _said_ was the wrong word, because the sound of Dean’s name seemed to reach his brain without the trouble of going via his ears. It was as though someone were speaking from inside his body, so loudly that the vibrations were strong enough to seem like words. A familiar someone, too.

“C-Cas,” Dean choked into the blackness around him. It was infinite. He was lost. “Can you hear me?”

_Of course. Are you comfortable?_

“Am I –?” Dean spluttered. “Where the hell am I?! Where are you?”

_Look around you, Dean. Open your eyes._

In the rush of falling, or flying, or – or  _whatever_ the hell it was that Cas had made him do, Dean must have snapped his eyes shut without even noticing. He gulped, and slowly allowed them to open.

What he saw made his mouth fall open. He was half-tempted to scream, and half-tempted to cry.

Stars. Thousands and thousands of stars. They were burning all around him, too bright to look at for long, red and purple and blue and  _beautiful,_ incredibly beautiful. Looking down at his body, he saw that he was floating in space – breathing normally, and still wearing his jeans, still bare-chested – but floating, in the middle of space. The closest star was a thick, burning red, and Dean half-imagined that he could hear it roaring.

 _What do you think?_  came Cas’ voice. It was definitely Cas, but there was something about it that seemed different to Dean, somehow. It was multi-layered, and as deep as the night that surrounded him.

“It’s –” Dean started. He was enraptured. The stars went on and on, as far as he could see. “How am I breathing?”

_Your body is still in your bedroom. This is an illusion, of sorts._

“So – so this place isn’t real?”

 _It is entirely real. I am showing it to you._ Dean swallowed. So, this was what Cas had meant when he’d said he wanted to show Dean something. It wasn’t exactly what Dean had thought he’d meant, but he couldn’t say that he was disappointed.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. He couldn’t stop watching the stars, trying to count the countless.

_I am glad you think so. This is one of my favourite clusters._

Dean almost laughed. Of course Cas had a favourite cluster of stars. The guy was so far outside of Dean’s understanding, and he’d actually been thinking that they could… God, he was ridiculous. He felt himself beginning to blush.

Hell, here he was in freaking  _space,_ and all he could think about was dumb romantic crap? Dean looked back out at the stars, trying to forget the little tightness in his heart that he would probably have to deal with at some point. They were more enchanting than Dean could ever have imagined, looking up at them from below. To fly among them, to watch them burn so bright and so close… it was incredible. They were so big, so wonderful, and Dean was so terribly, terribly small. A sudden spasm of fear went through him at the thought. Space stretched away infinitely, impossibly long and far and deep.

“Where are you?” Dean asked, his voice a little shaky. Immediately, he felt Cas’ presence come nearer, as though he were curling close. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a flash of blue; he tried to turn in the air, but he was weightless, caught in position.

 _I am here,_ Cas said softly.  _You are not alone._

Dean took a moment to drink in the words, feeling them come to rest next to his heart like a balm.

“Can I – can I see you?” he asked tentatively. He was starting to notice differences in the blackness, now that he’d been looking at it for so long: in some places it was velvet and dark, but in others it seemed veined in purple and blue, or as shiny-slick as oil. In its own way, it was as mesmerising as the stars themselves.

Cas didn’t reply for a long moment.

 _I am not as you know me,_ he said.  _It will take me a moment to appear in the semblance of my vessel._

Dean swallowed. That meant that Cas must look like himself, his real self. His true form.

“I want to see you,” he said. “Like – like you are. Can I?”

There was another pause, as though Cas were gathering himself – and then he moved out from behind Dean, coming around him and halting before him.

Cas was so incredibly bright, so intensely white that Dean could barely look. And he was  _huge,_ large enough to hold Dean in the palm of one of his hands – at least, Dean thought that they were hands. His body extended far beyond Dean’s capacity to see, and seemed to be clothed in a robe as dark as the night that surrounded them, the folds only distinguishable when they moved. His face was wide and glowing, scarred blue in places and tattooed with sigils in others. He was nothing that Dean recognised, too awesome and strange to comprehend; Dean felt a tear slide down his cheek at the sheer power, the radiance of Castiel.

And then the angel’s eyes opened, and they were blue, and wide, and kind. And Dean actually  _sobbed_. He was trembling with awe.

 _Be not afraid,_ Castiel said. When he spoke, he spoke with many mouths.

Dean swallowed and reached out a hand, and Castiel extended a single finger. They seemed to move through space with infinite slowness, coming together with an inevitability born of their mutual desire. When they touched, it was as though Dean were pressing his skin to the surface of lightning. Castiel’s finger was longer than seven of Dean, but its tip was fine enough to break his skin.

“Cas,” Dean said, his throat thick with wonder. “Castiel –”

 _Be not afraid,_ Castiel repeated, cutting across him.  _Do you understand?_

Dean closed his mouth and shook his head, drenched in the magnificence of the spectacle. He understood nothing about this, nothing at all. Cas lowered his face a little further towards Dean.

 _Look at me. Look at the stars,_ he said.  _We have existed beyond knowledge of time. We are scarred and old. We bring shape and light to the world around us._

Dean nodded, his expression reverential. Cas and the stars… they were one. They were raw power, undeniable light.

 _You are the same,_ Cas said.

Dean couldn’t help himself; his mouth fell open again, but this time with incredulity.

“Are you serious?” he squeaked. “Have you  _looked_ in a mirror lately?”

 _No,_ Cas said.  _But you have. And you did not like what you saw._

Dean should’ve known that Cas wouldn’t let go of that argument so easily. Was all of this just because Dean had poked at his wrinkles and scars?

 _Your skin and bones are made of the same tiny pieces that have been a part of the universe since it began,_ Cas said.  _In your own way, you are as old as I am._

“But – Cas –” Dean protested. Surely Cas could see how stupid this all was? He wasn’t on a level with the freaking  _stars._

_You carry the scars of the battles that you have fought. You have brought light and meaning to many, many lives._

“That’s a lie,” Dean said, before he could stop himself, and then quailed under Castiel’s ominous silence.

 _It is the truth,_ Castiel intoned. His huge, huge blue eyes blinked, once. His dark robes were swirling around him like streamers. Behind him, barely visible over the might of his torso, Dean thought he caught sight of the top of a glowing, gargantuan wing.  _It is the truth. I know, because I am one of those lives. Before I met you, I was alone._ Cas gestured with his hand towards the infinite space behind him.  _Now, when I tell you that you are not alone, I also tell myself._

Dean swallowed hard, lost for words. Castiel watched him, a warm gleam in his glistening lake-like eyes.

“But – but I’m not – I’m not beautiful,” Dean choked out. “I’m wrong on the inside.”

Castiel dipped his head, fast enough to make Dean’s heart leap in fear. He stretched out his angelic finger and touched Dean with the tip, this time in the centre of his forehead.

 _See yourself through my eyes,_ he intoned. Pictures began flashing through Dean’s mind – of himself, in different places, different times. He was eating, he was sleeping, he was laughing. He was in Purgatory, fighting to get them home, his arms at full stretch, body arched as he battled with monsters. He was cooking in the kitchen, twisting his hips to the beat of a song. He was sitting on the sofa, nodding earnestly as he listened to what Cas was saying. He was reaching over and stealing one of Cas’ fries, his face creased into a grin. Cas saw Dean as small, and strange, and wonderful.

 _Exist without fear,_ Cas said.  _You are the stuff of stars and wonder. Exist without fear._

More pictures, even faster. Dean crying, Dean praying, Dean washing his hands. Through Cas’ eyes, his skin looked soft and intricately patterned.  _Exist without fear._ Shaving, drinking, reading a book with his tongue poking out. Striding fearlessly towards a ghost, iron in hand.  _Exist without fear._ Driving, trying on a pair of new glasses, throwing his arm around Cas’ shoulders.  _Exist without fear. Exist without fear. Exist without fear._ Finally, standing in front of the mirror with his expression pulled taut with dislike, staring at himself as though he couldn’t see the whorls on his skin, the warmth in his eyes, the gentleness and strength in his hands.  ** _Exist without fear._**

“I – I understand,” Dean croaked, and with a suddenness that was almost painful, Dean was slammed back into his own body, in his own bed, in his own room. He was panting, even though he hadn’t moved an inch since he’d first laid down on the bed.

“Are you alright?” Cas said, not taking his hand away from Dean’s cheek. Dean nodded, still breathing hard, and half-laughed. He felt better, he felt –  _cleaner,_ somehow, than he ever had in his life. Castiel was watching him, a touch of concern in his gaze.

“I’m – I’m not afraid,” Dean said simply, and Cas’ worry shifted, changing to a smile of pure light as he dropped his hand away from Dean’s face. For a second, Dean could see an echo in his eyes of the bright angelic being that Dean knew him to be. He stared, unable to stop himself – stared long enough that Cas’ smile faded, though he didn’t look uncomfortable. In fact, he stared back.

His mouth was slightly open, closer than usual. Within easy reach.

_Exist without fear._

“Cas,” Dean said. “I really want to kiss you.”

Cas’ radiance shone out in the warmth of his eyes, the grace of his smile. He reached down and took Dean’s hand. Dean felt a tiny prick of pain at the tip of one finger, where Castiel’s angelic form had broken his skin. He smiled, too.

“I love you,” he said, as Cas leaned down, and Dean leaned up to meet him.

“And I love you,” Cas replied, a low, tender murmur, and yet – Dean thought he could hear it – that multi-layered tone of power, bottled up inside Cas’ body.

When they kissed, it was like kissing the surface of lightning. For both of them.


End file.
